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Warship Wednesday March 30, 2016: Of Mines and Khartoum

Posted on March 30, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, March 30, 2016: Of Mines and Khartoum

IWM Q 38999

Here we see the Royal Navy Devonshire-class armored cruiser HMS Hampshire during her brief life. Although a warship in the RN during the toughest period of the Great War at sea, Hampshire is remembered more for whom she carried rather than where she fought.

The Devonshires were a six-pack of mixed armament (4×7.5-inch; 6×6-inch) cruisers that were popular around the 1900s. These 11,000-ton ships were designed to act independent of the main battle fleet and could cruise worldwide and protect sea-lanes from enemy surface raiders, or in turn become a surface raider themselves.

The concept was invalidated in the Russo-Japanese War when Russian armored cruisers failed to make much impact on the extensive Japanese maru fleet, while they were sent to the bottom wholesale in warship v. warship ops. In turn, the armored cruiser concept was replaced by the more traditional all-big-gun fast heavy cruiser, and their flawed cousin the battlecruiser, both of which reigned for some time through WWII.

Still, the Devonshires, though obsolete almost as soon as they were commissioned, gave yeoman service while they were around.

The subject of our tale, Hampshire, was laid down at Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, 1 September 1902. She was the fourth such warship to carry that name on the fleet list, dating back to a 46-gun ship built in 1653 for Cromwell’s Commonwealth.

Ironically, Hampshire was completed 15 July 1905, just six weeks after the Battle of Tsushima that largely invalidated her existence. Her cost, £833,817.

After cutting her teeth with the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet for a few years as a shiny new warship for HM, Hampshire had her hull scraped and boilers reworked before being transferred to Hong Kong to sit the China Station in 1912.

1912, note the awnings for service in the tropics.
See https://deceptico.deviantart.com/art/H-M-S-Hampshire-1912-372335568

There, she waved the flag while keeping an eye on the German armored cruisers of Adm. Maximilian von Spee’s East Asia Squadron, preparing for Der Tag.

IWM Q 38999

When the balloon went up, Hampshire sortied for the German colony of Yap to destroy the wireless station there, on the way sinking the German collier SS Elspeth just seven days after the England joined the war. The lack of coal for Spee’s ships would be an albatross that ultimately ended his squadron. (Note: Hampshire’s sister, HMS Carnarvon, was present at the Battle of the Falklands and got licks in on both Spee’s SMS Gneisenau and Scharnhorst).

While in the Pacific, Hampshire just barely missed an opportunity to sink the much smaller cruiser SMS Emden (4200-tons; 10x105mm guns), however, she did carry that stricken raider’s skipper, Kvtkpn. Karl von Müller, to POW camp in England, while escorting an ANZAC troop convoy through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to Egypt.

At Malta

Arriving back in home waters in January 1915, Hampshire landed Müller, who was sent on to captivity at the University of Nottingham, then joined the Grand Fleet.

Fighting at Jutland with the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, her 7.5-inchers tried but failed to hit any German ships during that epic surface battle. Likewise, Hampshire herself came away unscathed.

In July, she was chosen to carry Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC, “Baron Kitchener of Khartoum” to Imperial Russia via the White Sea. Kitchener and his staff were to help revitalize the Tsar’s war machine; after all, he was literally the face of the mighty BEF, which had swollen from a small volunteer force of just six infantry divisions to a modern army capable of holding the Kaiser in place on the Western Front.

Lord Kitchener on board HMS Iron Duke at Scapa Flow, about one hour before he sailed on Hampshire

Lord Kitchener aboard HMS Iron Duke at Scapa Flow, about one hour before he sailed on Hampshire. This is believed to be the last image of the legendary soldier.

Leaving Scapa Flow for Archangelsk, Hampshire and her two destroyer escorts ran afoul of a minefield laid by U-75 in May.

There, on 5 June off the mainland of Orkney between Brough of Birsay and Marwick Head, Hampshire struck a single mine and was holed, sinking rapidly in just 15 minutes by the bow, taking 737 members of her crew and passengers to the bottom with her. Only 12 crewmen survived and made it to shore.

Able Seaman (Signalman) William George Waterman Tyneside Z/4464. Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, one of the 737 men lost on HMS Hampshire. IWM image

One other purported survivor, Boer spy Frederick “Fritz” Joubert Duquesne, known to history as “The man who killed Kitchener” claimed to have guided a German U-boat to sink the HMS Hampshire via torpedo from shore, though nothing supports that claim.

Duquesne

Attaching himself to Kitchener’s staff, he claimed to have escaped Hampshire alone to be picked up by a waiting U-boat. But anyway…

The news of Kitchener’s loss, coming after the carnage of the Somme, was a blow to the Allied war effort.

The Wreck of the Hampshire by Geoffrey Stephen Allfree, IWM ART 5252

Further, without a shot in the arm, the Tsar’s army largely walked away from the war the next year, though not even the hero of Khartoum would likely have changed that.

Remnants of Hampshire are considered relics in the IWM collection.

Fragment of boat belonging to HMS HAMPSHIRE in IWM collection

Royal Navy cap tally found among the effects of Midshipman E E Fellowes. Image via IWM

Fragment of a pinnace, or ship's boat, from the wreckage of the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire, washed up in Hoy Sound, June 1916. Image via IWM

Fragment of a pinnace, or ship’s boat, from the wreckage of the armored cruiser HMS Hampshire, washed up in Hoy Sound, June 1916. Image via IWM

Located in 180 feet of water, a small gun, some other minor wreckage, and one of her props were illegally salvaged in 1983 but have been recovered and preserved in museums.

HMS Hampshire gun at Marwick Head

As for her sisters, the five other Devonshires were luckier, with the exception of HMS Argyll, which wrecked on the Bell Rock, 28 October 1915. The four surviving ships were paid off soon after the war and sold for scrap.

Hampshire‘s name, though currently not in use, was bestowed to a County-class guided missile destroyer (D06) in 1963 and scrapped in 1979 after just 16 years service as part of the Labour Government’s severe defense cuts pre-Thatcher.

A memorial, planned by the Orkney Heritage Society is trying to raise £200,000 to more extensively commemorate the ship.

Image via Orkney Heritage Society

Some 737 names will be inscribed in panels on the wall, which will arc around the tower, with a separate panel for the staff of Lord Kitchener – and another one bearing the names of nine men killed on the drifter Laurel Crown, which was blown up in June 1916 while trying to clear the minefield.

Specs:

Displacement: 10,850 long tons (11,020 t) (normal)
Length: 473 ft. 6 in (144.3 m) (o/a)
Beam: 68 ft. 6 in (20.9 m)
Draught: 24 ft. (7.3 m)
Installed power:
21,000 ihp (16,000 kW)
17 Yarrow boilers; 6 cylindrical boilers
Propulsion:
2 × Shafts
2 × 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines
Speed: 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph)
Complement: 610
Armament:
4 × single BL 7.5-inch (191 mm) Mk I guns
6 × single BL 6-inch (152 mm) Mk VII guns
2 × single 12-pounder (3-inch, 76 mm) 8 cwt guns
18 × single QF 3-pounder (47 mm) Hotchkiss guns
2 × single 18-inch (45 cm) torpedo tubes
Armour:
Belt: 2–6 in (51–152 mm)
Decks: .75–2 in (19–51 mm)
Barbettes: 6 in (152 mm)
Turrets: 5 in (130 mm)
Conning tower: 12 in (305 mm)
Bulkheads: 5 in (127 mm)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

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Conestoga, found

Posted on March 24, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Modern painting of the USS Conestoga (AT 54) on its final voyage pounding through large waves during a gale off Southeast Farallon Island in March 1921. Credit: Artist Danijel Frka © Russ Matthews Col.

Past Warship Wednesday alumni, the 1904-era civilian designed and built, ocean-going steel-hulled tugboat, USS Conestoga (AT-54), veteran of the Great War and mystery of the high seas since her disappearance en route to Pearl Harbor from San Francisco in March 1921, has been found.

In 2009, a NOAA survey near the Farallon Islands off San Francisco turned up a previously uncharted shipwreck in 189-foot-deep water that was investigated in 2014. By last October, with the help of an archaeologist from the Navy and, the identity was confirmed. The Navy and NOAA went public with the announcement on Wednesday after spending the last six months tracking down survivors of the lost crewmen and notifying them first.

Investigators came to the conclusion that the vessel likely sank in a storm three miles off Southeast Farallon Island just a day after she left port. The orientation of the ship suggests she was trying to make it to the shelter of the islands but was swamped in the gale.

“After nearly a century of ambiguity and a profound sense of loss, the Conestoga‘s disappearance no longer is a mystery,” said Manson Brown, deputy NOAA administrator. “We hope that this discovery brings the families of its lost crew some measure of closure and we look forward to working with the Navy to protect this historic shipwreck and honor the crew who paid the ultimate price for their service to the country.”

For more information, visit NOAA.

Smithsonian.com also has an excellent article on the discovery and effort to contact the survivors. (Hattip, Awp101, on that one.)

Rest in Peace, Fair Winds and Following Seas.

Warship Wednesday March 23, 2016: A stormy tale of colonial standoff gone wrong

Posted on March 23, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 5 comments

Warship Wednesday March 23, 2016: A stormy tale of colonial standoff gone wrong

Courtesy of the Rev. William D. Henderson, 1967. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.Catalog #: NH 64694

Here we see the Kansas-class (later Adams-class) wooden-hulled screw gunboat USS Nipsic in Limon Bay, Panama, during the Darien Expedition of 1870. We say (later) because, though on the Navy List from 1863-1913 in one form or another, the Nipsic was actually two vessels.

Laid down 24 December 1862 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine, the 129-foot sail-rigged steamer was commissioned just nine months later on 2 September 1863 at the height of the Civil War. Rushed to the blockade of Charleston, she arrived by Thanksgiving and spent the next 18 months in Southern waters, capturing the blockade-runner Julia in 1864.

Lithograph of USS Nipsic, Kansas class screw steam gunboat. Catalog #: 2014.72. Naval History & Heritage Command. She and sistership Yantic were kept around after the war and refitted with a third mast.

After the end of the war, unlike most vessels acquired during the conflict by the Navy, she continued in active service, chopping to the South Atlantic Squadron where she served off the coast of Brazil and in the West Indies for eight years, being rebuilt at the Washington Navy Yard in 1869 during this time.

At the Washington Navy Yard, District of Columbia. The Yard’s western shiphouse is in the background. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 45212

Once rebuilt, she carried the Darien Expedition to the Isthmus of Darien (Panama) led by Cmdr. Thomas Oliver Selfridge. The purpose of the expedition was to determine a canal route and a collection of photographs taken by Timothy O’Sullivan is in the Library of Congress.

Darien Selfridge Survey. The First Reconnoitering Expedition, upon its return from the Isthmus of Darien Survey, No. 1 Commander Selfridge. No. 2. Captain Houston, USMC. No. 3. Lieutenant Goodrell, No. 4. Lieutenant Commander Schulze, No. 5 P.A. Surgeon Simonds, No. 6 P.A. Paymaster Loomis, No. 7 Lieutenant Jasper, No. 8 Mr. Sullivan Asst C.S. , No. 9 Lieutenant Allen, USMC: NH 123343

Upon return, Nipsic was kept around for a bit and laid up in 1873 at Portsmouth next to her Civil War sister USS Kansas (who was sold for scrap in 1883). The Navy had already stricken the remainder of the Kansas-class vessels (USS Maumee, USS Nyack, USS Pequot, USS Saco) and was working on disposing of them. Only USS Yantic was still in service– rebuilt in a “great repair” and kept around until 1930 as a training vessel and hulk.

What’s a great repair?

Well the Navy, lacking funds for new ship construction, traded a number of condemned vessels in the 1870s to shipbuilders to break up and either recycle or sell the salvaged materials for new ships that carried names of vessels already on the Naval List. However, ship specific items such as bells, wheels, furnishings and other objects were transferred to retain the ruse.

That’s how, on 11 October 1879, after a six-year “lay-up” in Portsmouth, a new iron-hulled 179-foot Adams-class third rate gunboat, still USS Nipsic, emerged from the Washington Navy Yard, to be “recommissioned.”

The Adams-class vessels were barque-rigged/steam-powered vessels that could make 11 knots when needed and mounted a modern armament of a single 11-inch gun, a quartet of 9-inchers, and a 60-pound Parrott. Nipsic‘s new sisterships, all new construction, carried historic USN ship names (Adams, Enterprise, Essex, and Alliance) and were designed to show the flag in far-off parts of the world, soon making their presence felt across the globe.

Adams, Nipsic’s new sistership. Note how much this ship differs from the above.

Nipsic was soon sailing, serving on European station before rounding the Horn and heading into the Pacific with her complement of Sailors and Marines.

USS Nipsic ship’s Marines drilling on deck, circa the 1880s. Their rifles are of the trap-door Springfield type. Photographed by Bradley & Rulofson, San Francisco, California. Note hammocks lashed and stowed in the hammock rails, details of standing rigging, fancy railings over hatches, capstain, and lookout with telescope standing on the bulwark. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (MC), November 1931. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 44709

One of the far-off ports alluded to above was the nation archipelago of Samoa, which was locked in a three-way fight with the U.S., Germany and Great Britain all vying to take over.

Becoming station ship at Apia, Samoa, Nipsic was in the harbor on the night of 15-16 March 1889, during a violent hurricane that wrecked two German (the 1,040-ton gunboat SMS Adler and the 760-ton gunboat SMS Eber) and two U.S. Navy warships (the majestic Pacific Squadron flagship, the 3,900-ton frigate USS Trenton, and the USS Vandalia, a 2,033-ton sloop). You see, instead of setting course for open water to weather the storm at sea, neither the Germans nor the Americans wanted to leave the harbor alone to the other for fear of shenanigans.

While Nipsic and the German 2,424-ton corvette SMS Olga survived the storm, but both were driven ashore and seriously damaged. The only British man of war in the port at the time, HMS Calliope, who bravely put to sea to the cheers of the stricken vessels and survived the tempest.

The destruction in the harbor was staggering, with the warships bouncing off each other in the hurricane’s unrelenting tidal surge proving too much.

The Nipsic beached, wrecks of Trenton & Vandalia astern. Artwork by Rear Admiral Lewis A. Kimberly, contained in his personal journal of the Apia Hurricane. It shows the southeastern part of Apia Harbor after the storm’s end. USS Nipsic is in the foreground and USS Vandalia is sunk at right, with USS Trenton wrecked alongside her. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Donation of Miss Elsie S. Kimberly, January 1958. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 42125

Gunboat Adler overturned on the reef, on the western side of Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, soon after the storm. Note her battered hull, well for hoisting propeller, rescue buoy mounted on her stern, and decorative windows painted on her quarters. NHHC Photograph Collection, NH 42286

View from the wrecked USS Trenton, with USS Vandalia sunk alongside. Taken in Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, during the salvage of the ships’ armament and equipment. Lines between Vandalia’s foremast and Trenton’s deck were used to save men clinging to Vandalia’s rigging during the storm. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Collection of Admiral Richard H. Jackson, 1965. NHHC Photograph Collection: NH 97996.

Samoan Hurricane of 15-16 March 1889. Crewmembers of USS Vandalia at their camp at Apia, Upolu, Samoa, shortly after their ship was wrecked in the storm. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Donation of Lt. H.E. La Mertha, 1934. NHHC Photograph Collection, NH 97917.

Jury rudder being made for use in the ship’s voyage to Hawaii to receive repairs for damage received during the 15-16 March 1889 hurricane. Probably taken at Apia, Upolu, Samoa, circa April-May 1889. The men present are (from left to right) the blacksmith’s helper, blacksmith and carpenter’s mate who built the rudder as designed and supervised by Rear Admiral Lewis A. Kimberly, USN. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 63405

Jury Rudder for the Nipsic. 22 feet-long, with Bollards filled with grape shot for weights. Made at Apia, it worked satisfactorily on a voyage of over 3000 miles from Pango-Pango to Fanning Island and Honolulu called by the sailors The ‘Admiral’s Fiddle’ Artwork by Rear Admiral Lewis A. Kimberly, contained in his personal journal of the Apia Hurricane, photographed against the text of one of the journal’s pages. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation. Donation of Miss Elsie S. Kimberly, January 1958. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
Catalog #: NH 42128

When pulled out of the water in Honolulu, what the screw looked like was unbelievable

Ship’s propeller, showing damage received during the 15-16 March 1889 hurricane at Apia, Samoa. Not only was the propeller bent beyond repair, but also the rudder and rudderpost were torn away, as were the keel and deadwood below the propeller. Photographed in dry-dock at Honolulu, Hawaii, after Nipsic had arrived from Samoa, circa August 1889. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 63082

Repaired to some extent, Nipsic remained in Hawaiian waters until she could make the trip to California, where she was decommissioned and disarmed in 1890. Her machinery was removed and her only value was as a barge.

Even as such, she lived on for another quarter century, with a large roof built over her amidships area, as a barracks and prison hulk at Puget Sound Naval Station, Bremerton, Washington.

At the Puget Sound Naval Station, Bremerton, Washington, 5 October 1897, while serving as a barracks ship. Off Nipsic’s stern is the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey ship Hassler, a 350-ton steamer built at Camden, New Jersey, in 1872. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN(MC). U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 44602

Photographed in 1898, while serving as a barracks ship at the Puget Sound Naval Station, Bremerton, Washington. Collection of Naval Cadet Cyrus R. Miller. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 44603

In February 1913, she was sold for her value as scrap, which at the time was $15,000; and used as an unpowered timber barge, but was burned for salvage just two years later.

Of her second set of sisters, Adams served as a training ship to the New Jersey Naval Militia in WWI and was sold in 1920; Enterprise did the same for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy for decades before meeting the same fate as Adams in 1909; Essex was the training ship for first the Ohio then the Minnesota Naval Militia before being burned like Nipsic in 1930; and Alliance, after service which included fighting Colombian privateers in the 1880s, was hulked and kind of lost to history.

It seems in the end, that out of the Kansas and Adams-class gunboats, only Nipsic is memorialized.

Samoan Hurricane of 15-16 March 1889. Memorial tablet in the Chapel at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Calif., dedicated to the memory of officers and men of USS Trenton, USS Vandalia, and USS Nipsic who lost their lives in the storm. NHHC Photograph Collection, NH 1897.

The damaged propeller of the Nipsic is on display at the Vallejo, California waterfront, across the channel from Mare Island while the tablet above is still in a place of honor today at St. Peter’s Chapel, the oldest naval chapel in the United States, maintained as part of the Mare Island Historic Park Foundation.

Good Evening From Vallejo | by Eric Dugan via Flickr

In addition, her Civil War-era 100-pound Parrott is on display at the Iowa State Capitol Complex.

Image by Knox Williams

She has also been remembered in a stamp issued by the Samoan government.

To date, Nipsic is the only ship to carry that name on the Naval List.

Specs:
(Kansas class, 1862-1879)
Displacement: 625 tons
Length: 129 ft. 6 in (39.47 m)
Beam: 29 ft. (8.8 m)
Draught: 10 ft. 6 in (3.20 m)
Propulsion: steam engine, screw propelled
Speed: 12 knots
Complement: 108
Armament:
one 100-pounder rifle (currently preserved in Iowa)
two 12-pounder rifles
two 20-pounder Dahlgren rifles
two 9” Dahlgren smoothbores

(As Adams-class, 1879-1913)
Displacement: 1,375 long tons (1,397 t)
Length: 185 ft. (56 m)
Beam: 35 ft. (11 m)
Draft: 14 ft. 3 in (4.34 m)
Propulsion: Steam engine, screw
Sail plan: Barque-rigged
Speed: 11 knots
Complement: 190
Armament: (Removed 1890)
1 × 11 in (280 mm) gun
4 × 9 in (230 mm) guns
1 × 60-pounder Parrott rifle
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday: March 16, 2016, the Tale of the Photogenic Tyrant

Posted on March 16, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday: March 16, 2016, the Tale of the Photogenic Tyrant

All photos except where mentioned are from the IWM collection

Here we see the forward view from the conning tower of the British T (Triton)-class diesel electric submarine HMS Tribune (N76) of HMs Royal Navy running along the surface in Scottish waters, 1942. Though modern and relatively low mileage, this 275-foot fleet boat only served for a decade, but she will live on for eternity.

With the World War I era boats getting long in the tooth, the Admiralty commissioned twelve 275-foot Odin-class, six 289-foot Parthian-class, six 287-foot Rainbow-class, 62 much smaller 202-foot S-class, three huge and rather experimental 345-foot River-class and six 289-foot Grampus-class submarines in the 1920s and 30s. With lessons learned from these 95~ diesel boats, it seemed the brass liked the 275-foot range as a sweet spot for general sub size and pushed ahead with 53 new T-class boats to replace the 1920s era O, P and R class submersibles mentioned above.

HMS TRIBUNE in Scottish waters, possibly at Campbeltown

These sea monsters, designed in 1935, had an impressive armament of 10 torpedo tubes (6 bow, 4 aft) which was considered devastating at the time, room for 16 torpedoes, and mounted a QF 4-incher on deck. A crew of 48 manned the 1,500-ton smoke boat and twin diesel/electric engines/motors could drive them at nearly 16 knots on the surface and 9 when submerged. They weren’t flashy compared to the German, U.S. and Japanese fleet boats of the day, but they could sail 8,000 nautical miles and could operate at a 300 foot depth with no problem.

The hero of our tale, HMS Tribune, was the sixth and thus far last ship of the fleet to carry that name since 1796. Laid down 3 March 1937 at Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Greenock on the River Clyde in Scotland, she was commissioned into the fleet on 17 October 1939– just six weeks after the start of World War II.

While still working up Tribune may have brushed into U-21 thought neither ship exchanged fire.

Over the next three and a half years she would complete an impressive 18 war patrols, though cranky engines proved her undoing. Many of Tribune’s patrols were quiet, with nothing but neutral ships spotted. Covered in great detail over at Uboat.net (go read it!), she had a series of 15 skippers over this period, typically reserve lieutenants. She spent extensive time off the coast of Norway and in the Kattegat while operating from Rosyth but just couldn’t make the hits when needed.

Tribune made unsuccessful torpedo attacks on the German armed merchant cruiser Schiff 33 / Pinguin off Standlandet, Norway; U-56 in the Hebrides; U-138 with 5 torpedoes about 10 nautical miles South-West of Ile de Groix; the German tanker Karibisches Meer in the Bay of Biscay; and finally sighted the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and light cruiser Köln leaving the Gimsostrommen and steering towards Hval Fjord in Sept. 1942 but was unable to attack.

During 1942, Admiralty photographers who captured a number of images that endure in the IWM today toured her at Scapa Flow.

HMS TRIBUNE lying alongside the submarine depot ship HMS FORTH at Holy Loch, Scotland at dawn

Second Coxswain of HMS TRIBUNE, Petty Officer Hedley Charles Woodley, at his diving station on the forward hydroplanes

A signaller with an Aldis lamp on board HMS TRIBUNE.

Lieutenant Commander G D A Gregory at the periscope of HMS TRIBUNE

Stokers playing cards on board HMS TRIBUNE.

Asdic rating, Leading Seaman Walker, on the bridge of HMS TRIBUNE keeping a watch out with a torpedo nightsight

Lt Bulkeley in the wardroom

Then came the Crown Film Unit who, with a barebones cast and director Jack Lee, cameraman Bill Chaston and cinematographer Jonah Jones with a few WRENs in-tow, filmed the Ministry of Information film “Close Quarters” aboard the vessel.

In the 75-minute film, she was referred to as HMS Tyrant and, while most of the scenes were fleshed out by a full production crew at Pinewood Studio in a superb full-sized model of the submarine, footage of the boat underway and her spaces were retained.

Actor operating a high pressure valve on board HMS TRIBUNE during the making of the film ‘Close Quarters

Note the greatly enhanced Jolly Roger of HMS Tyrant!

Transferring to Gibraltar in November 1942, Tribune began patrols in the Med with about the same success she had off Norway. Although she caught some depth charges from a RAF Wellington by mistake, and more from an Italian patrol boat, she did come in handy by landing SOE agents in Corsica in January 1943 and carried out close recon of the Copaiba Bay shoreline from just 1,000 yards or so offshore.

On 10 Jan 1943, Tribune finally drew blood by pumping torpedoes into the Nazi-flagged French merchant Dalny (6672 GRT, built 1914) 15 nautical miles from San Remo, Italy, which had to be beached in order to prevent sinking.

She followed this up later with damaging the German tanker Präsident Herrenschmidt (9103 GRT, built 1932) about five nautical miles South-West of San Lucido, Italy, in March.

Crew of the TRIBUNE pose around their Jolly Roger 6 June 1943 Portsmouth note the dagger for the Corsican commando landings

With her engines untrustworthy, Tribune was sent back to Portsmouth in April 1943 and spent the rest of the war as a training boat. Placed in reserve in June 1945 even before the war ended in the Pacific, she was transferred to Falmouth in November 1945 then sold to be broken up for scrap July 1947.

As such, Tribune was luckier than many of her sisterships, of whom 16 were destroyed, largely by mines and in scraps with Italian and German subs in the Med. After the war, some were modernized similar to the same program as the USN did with the GUPPY boats, but the last of these, HMS Tabard (P342), was discarded by 1974.

The stills and movie reels taken of Tribune will continue as a tribute to the class and HMs submarines as a whole during the war.

Specs:

Image via Shipbucket

Displacement:
1,290 tons surfaced
1,560 tons submerged
Length: 276 ft. 6 in (84.28 m)
Beam: 25 ft. 6 in (7.77 m)
Draught:
12 ft. 9 in (3.89 m) forward
14 ft. 7 in (4.45 m) aft
Propulsion:
Two shafts
Twin diesel engines, 2,500 hp (1.86 MW) each
Twin electric motors 1,450 hp (1.08 MW) each
Speed:
15.5 kn (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph) surfaced
9 kn (17 km/h; 10 mph) submerged
Range: 8,000 nmi (9,200 mi; 15,000 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph) surfaced with 131 tons of fuel[1]
Complement: 48
Armament:
6 bow torpedo tubes
4 external torpedo tubes
16 torpedoes
QF 4 inch (100 mm) deck gun

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday: March 9, 2016 Blooming flowers for Agerholm

Posted on March 9, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday: March 9, 2016, Blooming flowers for Agerholm

Here we see the beautiful water column blossom caused by a 20-kiloton warhead going off just 2.5 miles away from the ship that fired it, the hero of our story, the FRAM’d Gearing-class destroyer USS Agerholm (DD-826). You can note her ASROC launcher amidships deployed with one cell pointed in the general direction of said atomic water dome.

In July 1942 the U.S. Navy, fighting Hitler’s U-boat horde in the Atlantic and Tojo’s Combined Fleet in the Pacific was losing ships faster than any admiral ever feared in his worst nightmare. With that in mind, the Navy needed a lot of destroyers. While the Fletcher and Sumner classes were being built en mass, the go-ahead for some 156 new and improved Sumners— stretched some 14 feet to allow for more fuel and thus longer legs to get to those far off battlegrounds– was given. These hardy 3,500 ton/390-foot long tin cans, the Gearing-class, were soon being laid down in nine different yards across the country.

Designed to carry three twin 5 inch/38 cal mounts, two dozen 40mm and 20mm AAA guns, depth charge racks and projectors for sub busting, and an impressive battery of 10 21-inch torpedo tubes capable of blowing the bottom out of a battleship provided they could get close enough, they were well-armed. Fast at over 36 knots, they could race into and away from danger when needed.

The subject of today’s tale was named after Private First Class Harold C. Agerholm, USMCR, MOH.

Harold C. Agerholm

As noted by the NHC, this 19-year-old PFC was a man among men.

His second combat operation began in mid-June 1944, when he landed on Saipan, in the Marianas. On 7 July 1944, when Japanese forces counter-attacked and captured a neighboring position, Agerholm immediately volunteered to help evacuate the wounded. For three hours, he made repeated trips under heavy rifle and mortar fire, single-handedly evacuating approximately 45 causalities. Rushing to help what he thought were other wounded Marines, he was mortally wounded by a Japanese sniper. For his “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity,” he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Harold C. Agerholm is buried at Mount Cemetery, Racine, Wisconsin.

While ordered during the thick of the fighting, the ship named after our hero Marine wasn’t laid down until 10 September 1945 at Bath Iron Works in Maine– a full week after VJ Day. Christened by Agerholm’s grieving mother, she was commissioned 20 June 1946. Just four of her class were commissioned after her, and 58 were canceled in the inevitable post-war drawdown.

Stationed in the Pacific, Agerholm would accomplish a very respectable 21 WestPac deployments over the next 32 years of active duty under 27 skippers, never once passing to the reserves like many other period surface combatants.

Note her amidship torpedo tubes and all three 5-iinch DP mounts

She earned four battlestars for Korea for which she was forward deployed inside that warzone almost every day between 15 Mar 1951 and 31 Mar 1954 with brief pauses to take on more 5-inch shells, chow, and fuel. She plucked the pilot of an F4U-4 Corsair of VMF-312 from the USS Bataan, Marine 1LT Darrell Smith, from the drink in May 1951; plastered Wonsan and various Nork/Chicom troops with her guns when needed, and basically made herself useful throughout the conflict.

In 1961 she was given a Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) program upgrade, which consisted of a general overhaul of the 15-year-old ship, getting new sensors, swapping out her surface torpedo tubes for an amidships ASROC launcher, trading her depth charges for triple Mark 32 torpedo tubes for Mark 44 torpedoes, and landing her aft 5-inch mount for a mini-helicopter deck for an OH-50 DASH drone.

USS Agerholm Description: (DD-826) Underway on 18 April 1961, after her FRAM I conversion. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 107129. Contrast this with the overhead image above showing her WWII configuration.

Then came Swordfish.

Operation Dominic was a series of 36 nuclear explosions carried out by the U.S. at Christmas Island about 400 miles southwest of southern California during the Spring of 1962. One of these three dozen tests, Swordfish, involved Agerholm launching a nuclear-armed ASROC device into a well-instrumented test area.

The 160-pound rocket was outfitted with a W-44 nuclear warhead with a 10-20 Kt yield range and it is believed it went closer to the high end.

USS Agerholm DD-826 firing a nuclear ASROC, May 1962, Operation Dominic.

Aiming at a target raft 4,348 yards away, the rocket missed its sub-surface zero point by 20 yards and exploded 40 seconds later at a depth of 650 feet in water that was 17,140 feet deep.

However, 20 yards really doesn’t matter that much in nuclear weapons.

Dominic Swordfish spray dome dispersing further

Swordfish was the only full-service test of a nuclear-tipped ASROC missile and some 120 cameras caught the explosion from all angles.

“The spray dome from the detonation was 3000 feet across and rose to 2100 feet in 16 seconds. The detonation left a huge circle of foam-covered radioactive water. Within two days it had broken up into small patches and spread out for 5 to 8 miles”

This video was declassified in 1997 and shows multiple views of the Swordfish shot, and show just how friggen close Agerholm was.

(Note, the second blast shown on the clip is Operation Sailor Hat on the island of Kahoʻolawe, Hawaii in 1965 in which the light cruiser USS Atlanta and the guided-missile destroyer leaders USS England and USS Dale received a shellacking from three 500-ton charges of TNT high explosive detonated on the shore, staving in some deck houses and sweeping away some antenna.)

After her brush with Atomic history, Agerholm fell back into her normal WestPac cruise schedule, taking midshipmen on summer cruises while showing the flag.

Via Navsource/ Richard Miller, BMCS, USNR (Ret.)

Then came Vietnam and from August 1964 to April 1975 she was extensively involved there. She spent time as a plane guard for numerous carriers in the million-sortie war on Yankee Station.

USS Intrepid CVS-11 refueling the Agerholm July 1967 off Vietnam. Image by Larry Backus via Navsource

In 1966 while on Yankee Station, Agerholm undertook frequent near-shore naval gunfire support missions and, on 7 May, helped extract PCF42, which was under close fire just 800 yards offshore of Binh Dinh Province, recovering the patrol boat’s forward turret gunner who was hit on the flak jacket by small arms fire. She also came to the aid of USS Forrestal during her terrible 29 July 1967 chain reaction fire.

Gunfire Mission in Vietnam 1969 – by Ltjg Richard Crowe via ussagerholm.org

Agerholm got in lots of gunnery time against Mr. Charles and finished her Southeast Asia experience with eight more battlestars. Scoring another first, on 8 May 1968, she fired the first Rocket Assisted Projectile from her 5-inch guns, cruising near the briefly recommissioned battleship USS New Jersey, who was using her own novel RAPs to reach well inshore.

Dressed for visit Auckland, New Zealand, 1977. Via Shipspotting

Dressed for visit Auckland, New Zealand, 1977. This is our destroyer in the peaceful twilight of her life. Via Shipspotting

Agerholm‘s last action was in assisting with the military evacuation by air of Phnom Penh, Cambodia in the final days of the conflict.

USS Enterprise (CVN-65) departs San Diego, California, 8 April 1978, on her 9th WestPac deployment and returning from her 21st and final WestPac deployment. Photo via Navsource

USS Enterprise (CVN-65) departs San Diego, California, 8 April 1978, on her 9th WestPac deployment and is passing Agerholm, returning from her 21st and final WestPac deployment. Photo via Navsource

The days of WWII-era destroyers in the Navy by that time were numbered as the new Spruance-class was coming on line. Therefore, on the grizzled veteran with a dozen battlestars on her bridge wing was decommissioned on 1 December 1978 and her name struck from the Naval List that same day, sparing her the indignity of carrying it into red lead row.

She was expended in a SINKEX just over three years later

U.S. Navy UGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile hits (and sinks) the target ship USS Agerholm (DD-826), off Point Mugu, California, on 18 July 1982. The Tomahawk was launched from a distance of ca. 320 km from the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Guitarro (SSN-665). U.S. Defense imagery photos VIRIN: DN-SC-83-06574 and DN-SC-83-06575.

Her wreck is known

Today she is remembered by a vibrant veterans association.

Agerholm is on display at Rickover Hall, USNA, Annapolis, so to speak, in a 1:24 scale model.

As noted by Atlas Obscura:

This 16-foot long model is a cutaway that shows the exterior on one side, and reveals the complicated interior layout on the other. David Wooley and William Clarke write in Warships and Warship Modeling that “The Agerholm is probably the most detailed model ever built.”

The World War II-era miniature destroyer was pieced together by the Gibbs and Cox Company model shop in the 1940s. The model Agerholm cost $1.4 million at a time when a single family suburban home went for about $7,000.

Of her massive armada of 98 Gearing-class sisterships, 10 survive above water in one form or another including three largely inactive hulls in the navies of Mexico and Taiwan. The others are museum ships overseas except for USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (DD-850) in Fall River, Massachusetts; and USS Orleck (DD-886) in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Please visit these vital floating maritime relics.

One enduring link to the past for Agerholm is VMFA-312, the squadron whose Corsair pilot she saved back in 1951, which is still on active duty. The “Checkerboards” now fly F/A-18s out of MCAS Beaufort. The pilot, two-time DFC winner Darrell Smith, has lived a long life.

Specs:

WWII Gearing layout. Contrast this with her FRAM look as shown frequently above

Displacement: 2,616 tons standard; 3,460 tons full load
Length: 390.5 ft. (119.0 m)
Beam: 40.9 ft. (12.5 m)
Draft: 14.3 ft. (4.4 m)
Propulsion: 2 shaft; General Electric steam turbines; 4 boilers; 60,000 shp
Speed: 36.8 knots (68.2 km/h)
Range: 4,500 nmi (8,300 km; 5,200 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement: 336 as designed
Armament:
As-built:
3 × twin 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal guns
12 × 40 mm Bofors AA guns (2 × 4 & 2 × 2)
11 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannons
2 × depth charge racks
6 × K-gun depth charge throwers
10 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
By Korea
6 × 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal guns (in 3 × 2 Mk 38 DP mounts)
6 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 cal guns (2 × 2, 2 × 1)
2 × Hedgehog ASW weapons
1 × depth charge rack
6 × K-gun depth charge throwers
After FRAM
4 × 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal guns (127 mm) (in 2 × 2 Mk 38 DP mounts)
1 × ASROC 8-cell launcher
2 × triple Mark 32 torpedo tubes for Mark 44 torpedoes
1 × Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter (DASH)
Variable Depth Sonar (VDS)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

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Warship Wednesday, March 2, 2016: Fritz and the short career of an Italian battlewagon

Posted on March 2, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Warship Wednesday: March 2, 2016 Fritz and the short career of an Italian battlewagon

Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

Here we see the Littorio-class battleship (corazzata) Roma, the pride of the WWII Regia Marina and last flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini. While her 15 months of service to Mussolini’s Italy was uneventful, she ended her days with a bang.

Although the modern Italian Navy saw little service in the first few decades of the 20th Century– primarily being used in an uneventful blockade of the Austro-Hungarian fleet in World War I and a few skirmishes with the Turks before that– the admirals in Rome had a twinge of panic in the 1930s when the French laid down new, fast battleships for service in the Med.

To augment the Regia Marina’s four modernized Conte di Cavour (29,000-ton/10×12.6-inch guns) and Andrea Doria-class (25,000-ton/13×12-inch guns) World War I battleships, four new fast battleships of the Littorio-class (Littorio, Vittorio Veneto, Roma, and Impero) were envisioned with the first laid down in 1934.

These ships, which if you squint and look at them from a distance look a lot like the U.S. North Carolina-class battleships which followed just after, were beautiful, modern vessels.

With a full load displacement pushing 50,000-tons, they carried nine 381 mm/50 (15″) Model 1934 guns in three triple turrets guided by distinctive “Wedding Cake” Fire Control Directors and were capable of firing a 1,951-pound AP shell to a maximum range of a staggering 46,807 yards– and keeping it up at 1.3 rounds per minute.

Her 381 mm (15.0 in)/50 cal guns were tested to nearly 50,000 yards in experiments on land.

While the Littorios were reasonably fast, capable of 30 knots, they achieved this by using thin armor (just 11 inches in belt and much less on deck) which put them at risk against other large battleships (or significant aircraft-dropped ordnance) though below the waterline they used the innovative Pugliese torpedo defense system, a 40mm armored bulkhead blister outer hull over a 15-inch liquid-filled void. Although the Pugliese wasn’t ideal, the Soviets copied it for their last battleship class and the Littorios survived no less than four serious torpedo attacks during World War II (though air attack is another story).

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

The hero of our sad tale, Roma, was the third and last of the class to be completed (Impero was canceled, her unfinished hulk ultimately sunk as a target). Laid down 18 September 1938 at Cantieri Riuniti dell’Adriatico in Trieste, when WWII came less than a year later, work slowed on Roma and she was only completed on 14 June 1942.

Photo colorized by irootoko_jr

Roma upon commissioning

Gunnery trials

Upon completion

Roma was beautiful on the inside too it would seem – rather lavish officer’s quarters.

Commissioning. She would never be this beautiful again

Arriving at Taranto on 21 August, she was assigned to the Ninth Naval Division, though with the general lack of fuel experienced in all of the Axis countries by that stage of the war, she rarely went to sea.

In November, with the Americans landing in North Africa in Operation Torch, all three Littoros were moved from Taranto to Naples to lay low. The Americans quickly found them, however, and after air attacks Roma and her two sisters were moved to La Spezia where, for the next several months, they endured near-weekly air attacks that left all of the ships bruised and battered though unbroken.

Soon after commissioning she was given a distinctive camo pattern

In all, over a 15-month period, Roma spent a grand total of just 130 hours underway under her own steam.

italian_battleship_roma_by_achmedthedeadteroris

Her deck fore and aft had red and white diagonal stripes

As Rommel was defeated in North Africa and the Allies began landing on Sicily in July 1943 during Operation Husky, the Italian fleet at La Spezia consisting of the three Littoro sisters, a few cruisers and eight destroyers was put under the command of Admiral Carlo Bergamini, who chose Roma as his flag. An old-school surface warfare officer, Bergamini had picked up a silver medal in 1918 during the Great War while the gunnery officer of the cruiser Pisa, and commanded the Italian battleship division from the deck of Vittorio Veneto during the Battle of Cape Spartivent– which was about the closest thing to an Italian victory over the Royal Navy during WWII.

Then in September, the Allies began Operation Avalanche, the invasion of Italy proper. This led Bergamini, under orders from the new Italian government who sought an armistice with the Allies, to take his fleet across to La Maddalena in Sardinia where King Victor Emmanuel III was setting up new digs, thus keeping the flower out of navy out of German hands.

The only thing was, the Germans weren’t a fan of that plan, as the Allies jumped the gun and announced the secret Italian armistice on the radio in Algeria on 8 Sept.

Battleship Roma, date unknown

Slipping out in the predawn hours of 9 Sept, Bergamini’s fleet, joined by three cruisers from Genoa, made for Sardinia and just after dawn saw Allied planes observing their movements– but not attacking. Then, around 1340 that day came the news the Germans had seized La Maddalena, leaving Bergamini in a pickle as he cruised through the narrow Strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia.

Over the next two hours, six German Do 217K-2 medium bombers from III. Gruppe of KG 100 (III/KG 100) were seen by lookouts, each carrying what appeared to be a single large bomb. At 1530, these bombers climbed and hurled one of these oddball new bombs– that seemed to maneuver in flight– at the battleship Italia (Littorio), exploding just off her stern, damaging her rudder.

Then at 1545 a second bomber dropped a 3,450-pound, armor piercing, radio-controlled, glide bomb, which the Luftwaffe called Fritz-X, right down Roma‘s gullet.

Depiction of the Dornier Do-217M Fritz X attack on Italian battleship Roma. The glide bomb had a flare in its tail to allow the bombardier to guide it to its target from upto 5km away

Depiction of the Dornier Do-217 Fritz X attack on Italian battleship Roma. The glide bomb had a flare in its tail to allow the bombardier to guide it to its target from up-to 5km away

"End of the Roma 1943" by Paul Wright. Note the very distinctive national markings on deck. However, the flare on the Fritz-X seems a little too rocket-like as the bomb was unpowered.

“End of the Roma 1943” by Paul Wright. Note the very distinctive markings on deck. However, the flare on the Fritz-X seems a little too rocket-like as the bomb was unpowered.

The Italian battleship Roma listing after being hit by German Fritz X radio-controlled bombs launched by Do 217s, Sept. 9, 1943. Italian Navy photo

Eight minutes later, another Fritz struck the already crippled ship, leading to a magazine explosion that killed the vast majority of her crew– including Bergamini.

Explosion aboard Roma, Strait of Bonifacio

Capsized, she broke in two and sank by 1615. In all, two Admirals, 86 Officers and 1264 sailors were taken down to the seafloor with the stricken flagship who had less than 3,000 miles on her hull.

The rest of the fleet carried on and eventually made Malta where they were interred under British guns for the duration of the war, later moving to Alexandria where they remained until 1947. While Roma’s sisters, Italia/Littorio and Vittorio Veneto were on paper given to the U.S. and Britain respectively as war prizes, this was largely to keep them out of Soviet hands and both were scrapped at La Spezia in the early 1950s.

On Fritz, KG 100 continued to use these amazingly destructive weapons– the first effective smart bombs and precursors to current anti-ship missiles– in attacks on the cruisers USS Savannah, USS Philadelphia, HMS Uganda and the British battleship HMS Warspite, though without sinking them. Within months, the Allies figured out Fritz could be foiled by attacking his radio waves and by the Normandy invasion had issued some of the first electronic countermeasures to the fleet to jam the German wunderweapon.

German aerial picture of the KG100 attack on Warsprite

As for Roma, her wreck was discovered in 2012, found at a depth of 1,000 meters around 25 km off Sardinia’s coast. It is preserved as a war grave.

An Italian Navy picture of a cannon on the Roma battleship, found at a depth of 1,000 metres around 25 km off Sardinia's coast.

An Italian Navy picture of a AAA gun on the Roma, found at a depth of 1,000 meters around 25 km off Sardinia’s coast.

Bergamini in death was promoted to the rank of Ammiraglio d’Armata and two frigates, one in 1960 and another in 2013, have been named in his honor, the latest of which had top of the line air defenses against anti-shipping missiles.

Italy’s first FREMM class frigate, Carlo Bergamini (F590)

Specs:

Image by Shipbucket

Displacement: Full load: 45,485 long tons (46,215 t)
Length: 240.7 m (790 ft.)
Beam: 32.9 m (108 ft.)
Draft: 9.6 m (31 ft.)
Installed power:
8 × Yarrow boilers
128,000 shp (95,000 kW)
Propulsion: 4 × steam turbines, 4 × shafts
Speed: 30 kn (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Complement: 1,920
Armament:
3 × 3 381 mm (15.0 in)/50 cal guns
4 × 3 152 mm (6.0 in)/55 cal guns
4 × 1 120 mm (4.7 in)/40 guns for illumination
12 × 1 90 mm (3.5 in)/50 anti-aircraft guns
20 × 37 mm (1.5 in)/54 guns (8 × 2; 4 × 1)
10 × 2 20 mm (0.79 in)/65 guns
Armor:
Main belt: 350 mm (14 in)
Deck: 162 mm (6.4 in)
Turrets: 350 mm
Conning tower: 260 mm (10 in)
Aircraft carried: 3 aircraft (IMAM Ro.43 or Reggiane Re.2000)
Aviation facilities: 1 stern catapult
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Warship Wednesday: Feb. 24, 2016, Calling the Conestoga, Calling the Conestoga…

Posted on February 24, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 2 comments

Warship Wednesday: Feb. 24, 2016, Calling the Conestoga, Calling the Conestoga…

Courtesy of W.P. Burbage, 1970. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 71299

Here we see the civilian designed and built, ocean-going steel-hulled tugboat, USS Conestoga (AT-54) at San Diego, California, circa early 1921. Note her popgun forward. While everyone likes a happy ending to our Warship Wednesday tales, sometimes it just doesn’t work that way…and the above picture may be the last one ever taken of her.

SS Conestoga was designed as one of a pair of large seagoing tugs built to the same design by the Maryland Steel Co. Sparrows Point, MD for the Philadelphia and Reading Transportation Line of Philadelphia in 1904-1905. She and her sister, SS Monocacy, were meant to pull huge coal barges up and down the East Coast. These hardy tugs were 170 feet in length and displaced some 420 tons when fully loaded.

(American Tug, 1904) Photographed before being acquired by the U.S. Navy. This tug was USS Conestoga (SP-1128, later AT-54) from 1917 until 1921. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89793

Conestoga (American Tug, 1904) in port, prior to World War I. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89794

Commercial service suited the pair, but when the Great War came a-calling to the United States in 1917, both Conestoga and Monocacy were purchased by the Navy, on 14 September and 27 July of that year respectively, and sent to the Philadelphia Naval Yard where they were given a haze gray paint scheme, fitted with a 3″/50 gun mount and some smaller guns as well.

Both were placed in commission on 10 November with Conestoga being classified as a patrol craft, USS Conestoga (SP-1128), while her sister was renamed USS Genesee (SP-1116).

As noted by DANFS, both ships soon found themselves busy as they transported supplies and guns, escorted convoys to Bermuda and the Azores, served as standby for deep sea rescue work, and operated with the American Patrol Detachment in the vicinity of the Azores and Ireland (respectively).

USS Genesee (SP-1116) under way at Queenstown, Ireland, in 1918. Wartime fittings included the gun platform and 3″/50 gun forward and the crow’s nest on the foremast. US Naval History and Heritage Command. Photo # NH 53873, Photographed by Zimmer. Via Navsource.

Conestoga remained in the Azores for a year after the guns fell silent, towing charges as needed among the war weary shipping crossing the Atlantic, only returning to New York on 26 September 1919.

While most ships taken up from trade by the Navy were quickly disposed of in the days following the Armistice, the sea service kept Conestoga as a fleet tug, redesignating her AT-54 in 1920. Genesee was likewise reclassified as AT-55 and, sent to the Pacific, arrived at Cavite, Luzon, 7 September 1920 for permanent duty on the Asiatic Station.

Conestoga, on the other hand, was to become the station ship at Tutuila, American Samoa, the literal “gun boat” in gunboat diplomacy. As such, she was refitted first at Norfolk then at Mare Island in California after she transitioned oceans.

USS Conestoga (AT-54)’s six-man “Gunnery Department” posing with her sole 3″/50 gun, 1921. The Sailor at left marked “me,” may be Seaman 1st Class W.P. Burbage. US Navy photo # NH 71510, Courtesy of W.P. Burbage, 1970, from the collections of the US Naval Historical Center. Via Navsource. Burbage, luckily, was not aboard Conestoga when she left California.

USS Conestoga (AT-54) At San Diego, California, February 1921, preparing to ship to Samoa. Courtesy of H.E. (Ed) Coffer, 1988. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102094

USS Conestoga (AT-54) at Mare Island, California, February 1921, preparing to ship to Samoa. Courtesy of H.E. (Ed) Coffer, 1988. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102094

With a sole officer– Lt. Ernest L. Jones– in command, and a crew consisting of three chiefs and 49 men, our proud little tug sailed from Mare Island on 25 March 1921…

And was never seen again.

While the steamship Senator found what is believed to be an empty and waterlogged lifeboat from the Conestoga some 650 miles from Mexico, no other wreckage ever turned up.

Across the Pacific, mariners placed a weather eye on the horizon and burned oil and coal through the night looking for the unaccounted for ship for weeks.

Our Navy, the Standard Publication of the U.S. Navy, Volume 15, June 1921

One particular piece of naval lore came from USS R-14 (SS-91), a cranky diesel submarine who left out of Pearl on 2 May with several surface vessels to search for the missing tug.

From the Submarine Force Museum:

“By 12 May,” writes LCDR Robert Douglas, “she was dead in the water…and had been that way since late afternoon of the previous day, when the diesel engines had stopped. At about the same time, the radio transmitter had failed (not an uncommon occurrence then), so the boat was also without communications to shore.” The culprit was soon found: large amounts of seawater mixed in with the fuel. Try as they might, “they could neither prevent the contamination nor purify enough oil to run the engines for more than a few minutes.” Plus, there was only enough charge in the batteries to power one of the boat’s two motors for about 100 miles, not enough to get them home.

So, the R14 used sails, and limped along until 0530 on 15 May, when Hilo came into view.

(SS-91) Under full sail in May 1921. While searching for the missing USS Conestoga (AT-54) southeast of Hawaii, the R-14 lost her power plant. As repairs were unsuccessful, her crew rigged a jury sail, made of canvas battery deck covers, to the periscope, and sailed her to Hilo. She arrived there on 15 May 1921, after five days under sail. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 52858

Seen in the photo above are the jury-rigged sails used to bring R-14 back to port. The mainsail rigged from the radio mast is the top sail in the photograph, and the mizzen [third sail] made of eight blankets is also visible. LCDR Douglas is at top left, without a hat.

After the extensive search by all available assets, Conestoga was declared lost with all her crew, 30 June 1921 and stricken from the Naval List, consigned to the deep as part of Poseidon’s ever-growing armada.

From what I can tell, there is no marker or monument to her.

As for her sister, Genesee spent the summer of 1921 with the Asiatic fleet at Chefoo, China, and returned to Cavite 19 September. Subsequently she operated as a tug, a ferry, and a target tow in the Philippines until she was scuttled at Corregidor 5 May 1942 to avoid capture, earning one battle star for her World War II service the absolute hardest way possible.

UPDATE:

It looks like the Conestoga has been found in 189-feet of water just off South Farrallone Island where she likely foundered and sank in a gale just a day after leaving port.

The Conestoga is a military grave protected from salvage by the Sunken Military Craft Act of 2004, and is part of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

Specs:

SS Conestoga drawing published in the August 1904 issue of the journal Marine Engineering via Navsource/ Courtesy Shipscribe.com. Note the auxiliary sailing rig

Displacement: 420 long tons (430 t)
Length: 170 ft. (52 m)
Beam: 29 ft. (8.8 m)
Draft: 15 ft. (4.6 m)
Speed: 13 kn (15 mph; 24 km/h)
Complement: 56
Armament: 2 × 3 in (76 mm) guns, 2 machine guns (1917-19) later reduced to a single 3/50.
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has it place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday: Feb. 17, 2016, The Frozen Northern Lights(hip)

Posted on February 17, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Warship Wednesday: Feb. 17, 2016, The Frozen Northern Lights(hip)

Shot of the lightship renamed for the Flensburg station post 1924, pre-1939. Note the two lights shown on fore and aft masts

Here we see the one of a kind lightship (feuerschiff) Flensburg as she appeared while on station about 1924 as an auxiliary for the Weimar Republic’s Seezeichenbehörde service. Before the days of large offshore buoys, LORAN, Omega, and GPS, lightships were needed to warn ships at sea about dangerous shoals too far at sea for traditional lighthouses.

A three-masted schooner rig with a relatively shallow draft, this particular feuerschiff was ordered in 1909 for the Kaiserliche Marine (though paid for via 184,000 Goldmarks by the Royal Government of Schleswig) from Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (the same yard that went on to build the huge Deutschland and Bremen merchant submarines during WWI) and named Feuerschiff Kalkgrund (with that designation written in white letters on both sides of the vessel’s red hull).

The 118-foot vessel was assigned to the Kalkgrund shoal (go figure) at position 53 °49’45” north latitude, 9 ° 53’30”O-Lg off the Flensburg Firth until further notice in July 1910, replacing the lightship that held that duty since 1874.

The old Kalgrund lightship…not much to look at…

The new and improved 1910 model Feuerschiff Kalkgrund

With alternating 15-man crews that shuttled out every six weeks, the vessel shone her lights, rang her bell, and, at night and during fog, fired off a shot from a black powder signal cannon every five minutes (talk about monotony). Besides this, they saluted passing foreign warships (as they were technically a naval vessel), observed the weather, and just tried to keep from being run over by passing steamers in the dark. When the Baltic iced over in winter, the crews would spend a very cold season aboard the locked-in schooner.

Changing station on 1910, out with the old lightship and in with the new

Changing station in 1910, every six weeks or so a harbor tug would bring out a rotating crew and provisions.

World War I came and went and Kalkgrund remained put but kept a lookout for Allied naval ships. After the war, when the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet was interned and the Reichsmarine took over, the lightship was transferred to the Seezeichenbehörde and, in 1924, moved slightly to 54°50´18´´N, 9°53´55´´O, where she picked up the new name Flensburg and some decent radio gear.

There she remained, shone her lights, rang her bell, and, at night and during fog, fired off a shot from a black powder signal cannon every five minutes (talk about monotony). Besides this, they saluted passing foreign warships (as they were technically still kind of a Naval vessel), observed the weather, and just tried to keep from being run over by passing steamers in the dark. (Sound familiar?)

When war came again in 1939, she chopped to the Kriegsmarine proper who removed her center-most mast and replaced it with a deckhouse, added a 20mm AAA gun and a few machine guns, and waited out the war. Remarkably, she wasn’t holed by a Soviet submarine or a British bomber and survived long enough to land her guns in 1945 and just get back to the business of shining her light, ringing her bell…

As she appeared in 1960 with a rowboat from the Wanderfahrt club very far out to visit her. Note her mid mast has been jettisoned and a pilot house has been built in its place

As she appeared in 1960 with a boat from the Wanderfahrt rowing club very far out to visit her. Note her mid mast has been jettisoned and a pilot house has been built in its place

Anyway, in October 1963 a large automated leuchtturm (“light tower”) was built in the Flensburg Firth and our trusty lightship was put to pasture after over 50 years of continuous service in four different agencies and two world wars.

1961, she would be retired in just two years

Laid up by the government, she languished until 1991 when the Möltener Segelkameradschaft Yacht Club bought her for a paltry 16,000DM for use as a floating clubhouse.

This led to a subsequent sale to Ted van Broeckhuysen of the Netherlands who refitted and restored the old lightship to a sailing schooner with room for 20 passengers in double cabins, new nav gear, two zodiacs for going ashore, an auxiliary engine for the first time, and a lengthened and rebuilt bow.

After rerigging in Holland

After putting her to use in cruises of the Canaries and Azores, she found a new lease on life after 2002 as a one-of-a-kind ice hotel cruising in the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago under the name S/V Noorderlicht— Dutch for “northern lights” (call sign PGJG) out of Enkhuizen.

As Noorderlicht

In the 2014 season, which was uncommonly warm, there was no ice in the fjords

She sails with a crew of Captain, 1st Mate, 2nd Mate, Chef, and Expedition Leader. We say expedition leader because the red-hulled ship with white letters (somethings never change) likes to park in Spitsbergen and freeze in over the winter there, proving service as literal ice station, offering tours of the glaciers and polar bear-ridden attractions.

Located 60km northeast of Longyearbyen, this ship was accessible only by snowmobile or dog sled from mid-February to mid-May, dependent on ice condition.

Since 2002, an estimated total of between 6,600 and 7,200 guests stayed on board while she wintered over in Svalbard, averaging about 600 guests each season. In the Spring each year, the Norwegian Coast Guard Cutter K/V Svalbard broke the Noorderlicht out.

Every day there will be excursions on land, weather and ice permitting. The landings will take three to six hours per day over untracked area. According to circumstances (the weather, the ice-situation or the passengers´ wishes) the program can sometimes be adjusted. Ample time will be devoted to wildlife, vegetation, geography and history.

Can you tell where she gets her current name from?

“We thought then that we had to have a ship that has a greater relation to the Fram and came on the trail of the Noorderlicht,” said Steinar Rorgemoen, administrative director Basecamp Spotsbergen. “This is the only freeze-in hotel ship on Earth and kind of a symbol of what one can achieve if one dares to think outside the box.”

However, the days as a floating ice station are over. Noorderlicht‘s owners, Oceanwide Expeditions, advised this last freeze-in will be her final one in Svalbard. However, the ship, now in her 116th year, is far from retiring from the land of the Northern Lights altogether and has more than a baker’s dozen cruises scheduled for this year alone.

“Sv Noorderlicht will now spend her winter time sailing the beautiful fjords of North Norway, starting 30 October, 2016,” says a statement on their website.

For more information on the ship, including an amazing photo gallery, please go to their website

Specs:

As feuerschiff Kalkgrund/Flensburg
Displacement: 251 tons
Length overall 118 feet
Beam 6,50 meters (21.33 feet)
Draught 9 feet
Propulsion: Sail only. Three master 1910-1939, two master 1940-63.Gasoline generator for powering signal and lights only
Speed: 6 knots though rarely moved.
Crew: 15 (likely double during wartime service)
Armament: Signal cannon. (1914-18) small arms (1939-45) 20mm AAA guns, light weapons

As Gaffelschoner “Noorderlicht” post 1994
Displacement: 300 tonnes
Gross tonnage 140 GT
Net register tonnage 60 NT
Length overall (LOA) 46,20 meters, (151 feet)
Load waterline (LWL) 30,58 meters
Beam 6,50 meters
Draught 3,20 meters
Ice class: Strengthened bow
Propulsion: Caterpillar 343D 360 hp diesel
Sail area 550 m2
Speed: 7 knots maximum
Passengers: 20 in 10 cabins
Staff & crew: 5

Current armament: Mauser carbines for polar bear defense as the number of those great predators dwarfs the number of inhabitants and attacks are a real possibility.

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Warship Wednesday: Feb. 10, 2016, The Long Serving Chinco

Posted on February 10, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Warship Wednesday: Feb. 10, 2016, The Long Serving Chinco

USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) Photographed in mid-1945 following a West Coast overhaul. Her quadruple 40mm mount has been moved forward, but she retains an unshielded 5/38 gun on the fantail. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 19-N-88909

Here we see an overhead shot of the Barnegat-class seaplane tender USS Chincoteague (AVP-24). This hardy but unsung vessel would see myriad service in both the Atlantic and Pacific under numerous flags for some 60 years.

Back in the days before helicopters, the fleets of the world used seaplanes and floatplanes for search and rescue, scouting, long-distance naval gunfire artillery spotting, and general duties such as running mail and high-value passengers from ship to shore. Large seaplanes such as PBYs and PBMs could be forward deployed to any shallow water calm bay or atoll where a tender would support them.

Originally seaplane tenders were converted destroyers or large transport type ships, but in 1938 the Navy sought out a purpose-built “small seaplane tender” (AVP) class, the Barnegats, who could support a squadron of flying boats while forward deployed and provide fuel (storage for 80,000 gallons of Avgas), bombs, depth charges, repairs and general depot tasks for both the planes and their crews while being capable of surviving in a mildly hostile environment.

The United States Navy Barnegat-class seaplane tender USS Timbalier (AVP-54) with two Martin PBM-3D Mariner flying boats from the Pelicans of Patrol Squadron 45 in late 1948. Timber’s quadruple 40mm gun mount on the fantail was added around 1948. National Archives #80-G-483681

The 41 Barnegats were 2500-ton, 311-foot long-legged auxiliaries capable of floating in 12 feet of water. They had room for not only seaplane stores but also 150 aviators and aircrew. Their diesel suite wasn’t fast, but they could travel 8,000 miles at 15.6 knots. Originally designed for two 5-inch/38-caliber guns, this could be doubled if needed (and often was) which complemented a decent AAA armament helped out by radar and even depth charges and sonar for busting subs.

All pretty sweet for an auxiliary.

The hero of our study, Chincoteague, was laid down on 23 July 1941 at Lake Washington Shipyard, Houghton, Washington. Commissioned 12 April 1943, she sailed immediately for Saboe Bay in the Santa Cruz Islands where the Navy was slugging it out with the Japanese and the Empire was striking back on its own. She was assigned to be the mothership to Patrol Squadron 71’s (VP-71) new PBY-5 Catalinas near the island of Vanikoro.

There, on 16-17 July, she underwent eleven bombing attacks ranging from single airplane strikes to the onslaught of nine bombers at a time. While she beat off many of these, they left their toll.

From the Navy’s extensive report of Sept 1944.

-At 0738, on 17 July, two bombs missed the ship and landed in the water about 50 feet from the starboard side, detonating a short distance below the surface. Numerous fragments pierced the shell, some below the waterline. Several fires were ignited, including a gasoline fire, but these were effectively extinguished. Flooding through the fragment holes below the waterline reduced the GM of the vessel from about 3.2 feet to about 1.6 feet. In spite of this reduction in GM, the stability characteristics were still satisfactory for keeping the vessel upright in case of some additional damage or flooding…

-At 1150, some four hours later, a small general-purpose bomb* with a short delay in the fuze struck and penetrated the superstructure, main and second decks and detonated in the after engine room. The hull was not ruptured, but the engine room was flooded through a broken 8-inch sea suction line supplying cooling water to the main propulsion diesel engine. As the draft increased, water entered the ship through the fragment holes above the second deck, which had not been plugged effectively. Large free surface areas were created on the second deck…

-At 1420, another bomb landed in the water about 15 feet from the port side, detonating underwater. This did not rupture the hull, but the shell was indented in way of the forward engine room. The forward main engines stopped due to shock, leaving the vessel dead in the water…

Bomb damage diagram of USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) suffered on 17 July 1943 at Saboe Bay off the Santa Cruz Islands. Navy Department Library, USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) War Damage Report No. 47. Plate I

Bomb damage diagram of the USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) suffered on 17 July 1943 at Saboe Bay off the Santa Cruz Islands. Navy Department Library, USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) War Damage Report No. 47. Plate I

Chincoteague was able to get underway, suffered nine dead, and was towed to California for overhaul after just 12 weeks of active service.

The Corsairs of VMF-214 helped a bit with air cover and sucker punch a few Jap planes coming back for round 12.

Frank Murphy later chronicled this in USS Chincoteague: The Ship That Wouldn’t Sink. As for VP-71, they were reassigned and moved to Halavo, in the Florida Island chain to continue operations there.

Emerging at Christmas 1943 with her repairs effected, her AAA suite was modified slightly.

USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) A port side view of the forward portion of the ship taken on 15 December 1943 at the Mare Island Navy Yard. The ship was completing the repair of severe battle damage incurred in July 1943. Circled changes include new antennas on the foremast and just forward of the stack. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 97709

USS Chincoteague (AVP-24) Photographed on 27 December 1943 off the Mare Island Navy Yard following repairs to severe battle damage incurred in July 1943. One of the four 5/38 guns in her original armament has been replaced by a quadruple 40mm mount. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Catalog #: 19-N-57482

Returning to the fleet in 1944, she saw heavy duty in the Solomon Islands around Bougainville, the occupation of the Marshall Islands, action in the Treasury Islands, then tended seaplanes at Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Kossol Roads in the Palau Islands, Guam, Ulithi Atoll, and Iwo Jima, earning six battlestars the hard way for her wartime service.

This included supporting the lumbering PB2Y-3 Coronados of VP-13 and the “Black Cat” PBY-5s of VP-91 in 1944, then the huge PBM-3D Mariners of VP-25 the next year.

A PB2Y-3 of VP-13 at Midway in 1944, the Chinco supported these planes from this squadron during anti-shipping operations in the Marshal Islands from 26 Feb–22 Jun 1944 with the big boats conducting two 600-900 mile patrols each day, the longest search sectors ever flown by a PB2Y-3 to that date. The 66,000 pound PB2Y-3 could carry six tons of bombs and had a massive 115-foot wingspan

A PB2Y-3 of VP-13 at Midway in 1944. The Chinco supported the planes from this squadron during anti-shipping operations in the Marshal Islands from 26 Feb–22 Jun 1944 with the big boats conducting two 600-900 mile patrols each day, the longest search sectors ever flown by a PB2Y-3 to that date. The 66,000 pound PB2Y-3 could carry six tons of bombs and had a massive 115-foot wingspan

When the war ended, she poked around Chinese waters into 1946 conducting occupation and mopping up duties.

Like most of her 35 completed sisterships (the other six planned were canceled), she was decommissioned shortly after the war on 21 December 1946 and laid up at the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, Texas Group, Beaumont.

Also, like a number of her sisters (Absecon, Biscayne, Casco, Mackinac, Humboldt, Matagorda, Absecon, Coos Bay, Half Moon, Rockaway, Unimak, Yakutat, Barataria, Bering Strait, Castle Rock, Cook Inlet, Wachapreague, and Willoughby) she was loaned to the US Coast Guard where the vessels were known collectively as the Casco-class cutters, or commonly just referred to in Coastie fashion as “311” class vessels for their oal length.

Note most of her guns are gone but she has a new air-search radar on her aft mast which has a balloon hangar at its base. Also, note the Hedgehog ASW device boxes just forward of the bridge.

On 7 March 1949, with her armament greatly reduced, her seaplane gear landed, and her paint scheme switched to white and buff, she was commissioned as USCGC Chincoteague (WAVP-375). She was actually the second such cutter to carry the name, following on the heels of an 88-foot armed tug used in the 1920s.

To be used in ocean station duty, Chincoteague and her sisters were given a balloon shelter aft, and spaces formerly used to house aviators were devoted to oceanographic equipment while a hydrographic and an oceanographic winch were added. For wartime use against Soviet subs, she was later given an updated sonar and Mk 32 Mod 5 torpedo tubes.

Absecon and Chincoteague USCG Base Portsmouth VA circa 1964 note one has racing stripe and other does not.

Sisters Absecon and Chincoteague USCG Base Portsmouth VA circa 1964. Note one has a racing stripe and the other does not.

Homeported in Norfolk, she spent long and boring weeks on station far out to the Atlantic. This was broken up by an epic rescue in high seas when, on 30 October 1956, Chincoteague rescued 33 crewmen from the German freighter, Helga Bolten, in the middle of the North Atlantic by using two inflatable lifeboats, landing them in the Azores.

November 12, 1956 While on patrol weather station DELTA the cutter CHINCOTEAGUE rescued the crew of the stricken German freighter HELGA BOLTON

By the late 1960s, the Navy was divesting itself of their remaining Barnegat-class vessels as they were getting long in the tooth and seaplanes were being withdrawn. Further, with the new Hamilton-class 378-foot High Endurance Cutters coming online, the Coast Guard didn’t need these ships either.

Nevertheless, someone else did.

Sistership USS Cook Inlet in Coast Guard service as WAVB-384. She would be transferred to the Vietnamese Navy as RVNS Tran Quoc Toan (HQ-06) in 1971

A beautiful image of sistership USS Cook Inlet in Coast Guard service as WAVP-384. She would be transferred to the Vietnamese Navy as RVNS Tran Quoc Toan (HQ-06) in 1971

Between 1971-1972 Chincoteague and 6 of her sisters in Coast Guard service (Wachapreague, Absecon, Yakutat, Bering Strait, Castle Rock, and Cook Inlet) were transferred to the Navy of the Republic of Vietnam. Chincoteague became RVNS Ly Thuong Kiet (HQ-16) on 21 June 1972.

However, her war service in Vietnamese waters was short-lived.

When Saigon fell in April 1975, she sailed along with Yakutat (RVNS Tran Nhat Duat), Bering Strait (RVNS Tran Quang Khai), Castle Rock (RVNS Tran Binh Trong), Cook Inlet (RVNS Tran Quoc Toan), and Wachapreague (RVNS Ngo Quyen) to the Philippines as a navy in exile filled with not only service members but also their families. Absecon remained behind and served in the People’s Navy for several years.

The Philippine government disarmed the seaplane tenders-turned-frigates and interned them, then finally took custody of them after a few weeks to forestall efforts by the new government in Vietnam to get them back. As the U.S. still “owned” the ships, they were sold for a song to the PI in 1976.

In poor condition, some were laid up and stripped of usable parts to keep those in better shape in service. As such, Chincoteague sailed in Philippine Navy as patrol vessel BRP Andres Bonifacio (PF-7), the flagship of the fleet, for another decade along with her faithful sisters BRP Gregorio Del Pilar (Wachapreague), BRP Diego Silang (Bering Strait), and BRP Francisco Dagohoy (Castle Rock) along for the ride.

The Philippines planned to give these ships new radar systems (SPS53s) and Harpoons in the 1980s but the latter never came to fruition. Despite this, the aft deck which supported seaplanes for the U.S. Navy and weather balloons for the Coast Guard was replaced by a helipad for one MBB BO-105 light helicopter– continuing an aviation tradition even in her old age.

Left in a reserve status after 1985, Chincoteague/Ly Thuong Kiet/Andres Bonifacio was finally withdrawn from service in 1993, her three sisters already sold for scrap by then.

She endured as a pierside hulk used for the occasional training until she was sent to the breakers in 2003, the last of her class afloat. As such, she far outlasted the era of the military seaplane.

The closest thing to a monument for these vessels is the USS/USCGC Unimak (AVP-31/WAVP/WHEC/WTR-379), the last of the class in U.S. service, which was sunk in 1988 as an artificial reef off the Virginia coast in 150 feet of water.

Her name endures in the form of the USCGC Chincoteague (WPB-1320), an Island-class 110-foot cutter commissioned in 1988.

As for the four seaplane patrol squadrons that flew from the Chinco in WWII, (VP-13, VP-25, VP-71, and VP-91) they were disestablished in 1945, 1950, 1946, and 1991 respectively with PATRON91 flying Neptunes and later P-3s during the Cold War.

Specs:

Displacement 1,766 t.(lt) 2,800 t.(fl)
Length 311′ 6″
Beam 41′ 1″
Draft 12′ 5″
Speed 18.2 kts (trial)
Complement
USN
Officers 14
Enlisted 201
USN Aviation Squadrons
Officers 59
Enlisted 93
USCG
Officers 13
Enlisted 136
Largest Boom Capacity 10 t.
USCG Electronics
Radar: SPS-23, SPS-29D
Sonar: SQS-1
Philippine Navy electronics
Radar: AN/SPS-53, SPS-29D
Armament
USN
four single 5″/38 cal
one quad 40mm AA gun mount
two twin 40mm AA gun mounts
four twin 20mm AA gun mounts
USCG
one single 5″/38 cal. Mk 12, Mod 1 dual-purpose gun mount
one Mk 52 Mod 3 director
one Mk 26 fire control radar
one Mk 11 A/S projector
two Mk 32 Mod 5 torpedo tubes (later deleted in 1972)
Fuel Capacities
Diesel 2,055 Bbls
Gasoline 84,340 Gals
Propulsion
Fairbanks-Morse, 38D8 1/2 Diesel engines
single Fairbanks-Morse Main Reduction Gears
Ship’s Service Generators
two Diesel-drive 100Kw 450V A.C.
two Diesel-drive 200Kw 450V A.C.
two propellers, 6,400shp
20 Kts max, 8,000 miles at 15.6 knots.

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Warship Wednesday: Jan. 27, 2016 The Tragic Tale of the Wake Island Wanderer

Posted on January 27, 2016 by laststandonzombieisland 4 comments

Warship Wednesday: Jan. 27, 2016 The Tragic Tale of the Wake Island Wanderer

Fine-screen halftone reproduction of a photograph of the ship in harbor, circa 1891-1901. It was published by the SUB-POST Card Co., of Los Angeles, California. Donation of H.E. (Ed) Coffer. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102777

Here we see Gunboat #4, the USS Bennington, a Yorktown-class gunboat labeled as a cruiser (third rate) in the post card above, and she acted like one, roaming the coasts of the world far and wide, adding to the territory of the United States on occasion, and suffering a sad fate in the end.

The three ships of the Yorktown class, all named after Revolutionary War battles, were designed in the 1880s in a joint effort between the Navy and William Cramp and Sons shipyard of Philadelphia (though only class leader Yorktown would be built at the yard, follow-on sisters Concord and Bennington— the hero of our tale– would be built at the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding & Engine Works in Chester, PA).

Humble, steel-hulled ships of just 244 feet in overall length, these 1,900-ton warships were slow at just 16 knots and at half that could voyage for 12,000 nautical miles on 400 tons of coal but, when coupled with their three-masted schooner rig and 6,300 feet of canvas carried as auxiliary propulsion, could roam the world as long as there was wind.

They weren’t built to take a lot of punishment, having just two inches of armor on their conning tower and much, much less (9.5mm) over deck spaces and coal bunkers. However for ships their size, they were able to put out a fair bit of punishment, mounting a half dozen 6″/30 Mark I guns. These guns were the standard armament of the “New Navy” in the 1880s and were used on the “ABCD” squadron (cruisers USS Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and gunboat Dolphin), as well as most of the early cruisers (main guns) and battleships (as secondary armament) of the pre-1898 U.S. Fleet. They could fire a 105-pound shell out to 18,000 yards.

Stern 6" (15.2 cm) gun on S.S. Mongolia on 19 May 1917, shown for reference. The Yorktown class had six of these including some in both open mounts such as this and barbettes. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 41710.

Stern 6″ (15.2 cm) gun on S.S. Mongolia on 19 May 1917, shown for reference. The Yorktown class had six of these in shielded mounts. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 41710.

Bennington, the first U.S. Navy ship to carry the name, did so to commemorate the decisive American victory of New England militia over a bunch of Hessian mercenaries near Bennington, Vermont on 16 August 1777. She was commissioned 20 June 1891 and was soon off to become a world traveler.

Assigned first to the “White Squadron” or Squadron of Evolution and subsequently to the South Atlantic Squadron of RADM John G. Walker, the squadron toured ports in America, Europe, North Africa, and South America, demonstrating the U.S. Navy’s technological prowess as well as its commitment to protecting the nation’s merchant fleet.

(Gunboat # 4) Photographed circa 1891 by J.S. Johnston, New York City. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 63248

(Gunboat # 4) In a European harbor, circa 1892-1893, with USS Newark (Cruiser # 1) alongside. Courtesy of Arrigo Barilli, Bologna, Italy. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56381

(Gunboat # 4) Dressed with flags in a harbor, probably while serving with the Squadron of Evolution, circa 1891-1892. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 67551

(Gunboat # 4) In a harbor, 1893. Copied from The New Navy of the United States, by N.L. Stebbins, (New York, 1912). Donation of David Shadell, 1987. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102742

(Gunboat # 4) In a harbor, 1893 likely at the Colombian Exihibition. Copied from The New Navy of the United States, by N.L. Stebbins, (New York, 1912). Donation of David Shadell, 1987. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH102742

In 1894, after cruising to Europe twice and all over South America, she received orders to transfer to the Pacific just after participating in the International Naval Review at Hampton Roads, arriving at Mare Island Navy Yard in San Diego on 30 April of that year.

(Gunboat # 4) Off Valparaiso, Chile, 3 April 1894 on her way to California. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102821

(Gunboat # 4) Off Valparaiso, Chile, 3 April 1894 on her way to California. Note the new pilot house that has been fitted to her bridge. This would be removed in 1902. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102821

USS Bennington (Gunboat # 4) In drydock at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, circa 1894-98. This photograph was published on a -tinted postcard by Edward H. Mitchell, San Francisco, California. Courtesy of H.E. (Ed) Coffer, 1986. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 100931-KN

After having her hull scraped, she was soon off to Hawaii where she spent most of the next two years where she rode shotgun in port during the upheaval in the combat between Royalist and republican forces there that led eventually to the ouster of Queen Liliʻuokalani, paving the way to Hawaii’s annexation in 1898.

When the Spanish-American War erupted, she left Hawaii and patrolled the California coast on the off chance Spanish raiders would appear then in September set sail, unescorted, to the Philippines. There, her sister Concord on the Asiatic Station had been a part of Admiral George Dewey’s fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay just four months prior, but the islands were far from conquered.

On the way to the PI, Bennington stopped at the unclaimed and uninhabited atoll of Wake Island halfway between Honolulu and Manila and took control of the strategic location under orders from President McKinley.

Commander (later RADM) Edward D. Taussig of the USS Bennington takes formal possession of Wake Island for the United States with the raising of the flag and a 21-gun salute on January 17, 1899. The only witnesses aside from her crew were seabirds. The depiction incorrectly shows Bennington in the distance with two funnels. Tassuig’s son Joe would later rise to Vice Admiral in WWII and tussle with FDR on several occasions while his grandson would lose a leg on the Nevada at Pearl Harbor.

A subsequent stop at the Spanish possession of Guam on 23 January led to the surrender of that island to the U.S. as well. Taussig inspected the ancient Spanish military positions on the island and found them “condemned.”

Arriving in the Philippines in Feb. 1899, Bennington spent two years heavily involved in the pacification efforts there. With a draft of just 14 feet, she was often called upon to come close to shore and support landings and combat on land with her big six inchers.

She also was involved in the occasional surface fight, sinking the over-matched insurgent vessel Parao on Sept 12, 1899. When things slowed down, she served as a station ship at Cebu before otherwise aiding Army operations throughout the chain.

Leaving for Hong Kong in 1901, she was refitted and soon got back to the business of international flag-waving, visiting Shanghai for an extended period before heading back to the West Coast.

(Gunboat # 4) In the Kowloon, dry dock, Hong Kong, China, in 1901. Collection of Chief Boatswain’s Mate John E. Lynch, USN. Donated by his son, Robert J. Lynch, in April 2000. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102766

(Gunboat # 4) At Shanghai, China, on 4 July 1901, dressed with flags in honor of Independence Day. Collection of Chief Boatswain’s Mate John E. Lynch, USN. Donated by his son, Robert J. Lynch, in April 2000. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102765

There, along with familiar faces in the form of USS Concord, she participated in a Latin American cruise and patrolled Alaskan and Hawaiian territorial waters as needed.

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay, California, circa 1903-1905. This image is printed on a postcard published during the first decade of the Twentieth Century by Frank J. Stumm, Benicia, California. For a view of the reverse of the original postcard, see: Photo # NH 105303-A. Courtesy of Harrell E. (Ed) Coffer, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105303

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay, California, circa 1903-1905. Note her pilothouse has been removed and she has been reduced to two masts as her auxiliary sail rig was jettisoned at this time. This image is printed on a postcard published during the first decade of the Twentieth Century by Frank J. Stumm, Benicia, California. For a view of the reverse of the original postcard, see: Photo # NH 105303-A. Courtesy of Harrell E. (Ed) Coffer, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105303

USS Bennington (Gunboat # 4) At anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay, California, circa 1903-1905. This -tinted photograph is printed on a postcard, published during the first decade of the Twentieth Century by Frank J. Stumm, Benicia, California. For a view of the reverse of the original postcard, see: Photo # NH 105302-A-KN. Courtesy of Harrell E. (Ed) Coffer, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 105302-KN

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor while serving with the Pacific Squadron in 1904. Donation of John C. Reilly, Jr., 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102751

(Gunboat # 4) At anchor while serving with the Pacific Squadron in 1904 on laundry day. Donation of John C. Reilly, Jr., 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 102751

Ships of the squadron in the moonlight, during a Latin American cruise, circa 1903-1904. USS New York (Armored Cruiser # 2) is in the left center. The other two ships, listed in no particular order, are USS Concord (Gunboat # 3) and USS Bennington (Gunboat # 4). Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85693

Racing across the Pacific. She would continue to be a regular fixture from Hawaii to Latin America and Alaska NH 102747

USS Bennington Description: (Gunboat # 4) At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, circa 1903. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, 1975. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 83961

(Gunboat # 4) Ship’s officers and crew posed on deck and in her foremast rigging, at San Diego, California, 3 March 1905. Tragically, within just four months, many of these men in the photo would be dead. Courtesy of the Historical Collection, Union Title Insurance Company, San Diego, California. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56382

On 21 July 1905 Bennington was building steam in her four 17-foot long locomotive boilers to leave port when disaster struck.

At about 10:30, excessive steam pressure in the boiler resulted in a boiler explosion that rocked the ship, sending men and equipment flying into the air. The escaping steam sprayed through the living compartments and decks. The explosion opened Bennington’s hull to the sea, and she began to list to starboard. Quick actions by the tug Santa Fe — taking Bennington under tow and beaching her – almost certainly saved the gunboat from sinking in deeper water.

The explosion occurred directly under the ship’s galley just before lunch after a hard morning of coaling and the area was filled with hungry sailors. In all, 66 men were killed and another 46 seriously wounded– more than half her crew. It was one of the worst accidents in the history of the Navy and resulted in 11 Medal of Honor awards for “extraordinary heroism displayed at the time of the explosion.”

These individuals earned the Navy Medal of Honor during the period specified. Their names are followed by their rank and rate, if known, the date of the action and the vessel or unit on which they served.

BOERS, EDWARD WILLIAM, Seaman, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, 21 July 1905
BROCK, GEORGE F., Carpenter’s Mate Second Class, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
CLAUSEY, JOHN J., Chief Gunner’s Mate, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, 21 July 1905
CRONAN, WILLIE, Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, 21 July 1905
FREDERICKSEN, EMIL, Watertender, U.S. Navy, USS Benington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
GRBITCH, RADE, Seaman, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
HILL, FRANK E., Ship’s Cook First Class, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
NELSON, OSCAR FREDERICK, Machinist’s Mate First Class, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
SCHMIDT, OTTO DILLER, Seaman, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905
SHACKLETTE, WILLIAM SIDNEY, Hospital Steward, U.S. Navy., USS Bennington, San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905

(Gunboat # 4) Halftone reproduction of a photograph, showing the ship as her engine room was being pumped out, soon after her 21 July 1905 boiler explosion at San Diego, California. Note her National Ensign flying at half-staff. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps), November 1931. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 56383-B

Gunboat # 4) Removing the dead from the ship, following her boiler explosion at San Diego, California, 21 July 1905. Photographed and published on a stereograph card by C.H. Graves, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The inscription published on the reverse of the original card is provided on Photo #: NH 89081 (extended caption). Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN(MSC), 1979 U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89081

(Gunboat # 4) Halftone reproduction of a photograph, showing the ship’s starboard side, amidships, as she was beached at San Diego, California, soon after her 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. A disabled six-inch gun is in the center of the image. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps), November 1931. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.Catalog #: NH 56383-A

It was a cause for national mourning and the victims were laid to rest at Fort Rosecrans military cemetery just two days later as local mortuary services were overextended.

(Gunboat # 4) Funeral procession at San Diego, California, for victims of the ship’s 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85697

(Gunboat # 4) Burial ceremonies, at San Diego, California, for victims of the ship’s 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85698

At the cemetery, a 60-foot obelisk was erected for the crew in 1908, overlooking their resting place.

One survivor of the explosion was John Henry (Dick) Turpin who has been a part of history already.

You see, Turpin enlisted in the Navy in 1896 and was a survivor of the explosion on USS Maine in Havanna harbor in 1898. Remaining in the service despite his experiences, he became a Chief Gunner’s Mate in 1917 and served in WWI. Transferred to the Fleet Reserve in 1919, CGM Turpin retired in 1925. Qualified as a Master Diver, he was also employed as a Master Rigger at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, and, during the World War II era, made inspirational visits to Navy Training Centers and defense plants, likely one of the few bluejackets to have served in the Spanish American War and both World Wars.

All the more of an accomplishment due to military segregation at the time of his service.

Photo #: NH 89471 John Henry (Dick) Turpin, Chief Gunner’s Mate, USN (retired) (1876-1962) One of the first African-American Chief Petty Officers in the U.S. Navy. This photograph appears to have been taken during or after World War II. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 89471

Damaged beyond economical repair, Bennington was decommissioned 31 October 1905 and stripped of her armament and machinery. Her guns were likely re-purposed in World War I for use in arming merchant ships.

(Gunboat # 4) Salvage party at work on the partially sunken ship, in San Diego harbor, California, after her 21 July 1905 boiler explosion. Bennington’s National Ensign is flying at half-staff. Donation of William L. Graham, 1977. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 85696

After dry-docking to repair her hull, she was converted to an unpowered barge for use in Honolulu until being struck from the Navy list 10 September 1910 and she was sold for her value in scrap that November.

The Matson Navigation Company acquired the hulk for the ignoble use as a molasses tow barge in 1913, finally scuttling her off Oahu in 1924.

The barge Bennington at Honolulu. U.S. Navy photo Honolulu 1912 – 1924 via Navsource.

In 1944, the Navy would commission USS Bennington (CV/CVA/CVS-20), an Essex-class carrier, as the only other ship to bear the name. Decommissioning 15 January 1970, she lived a long an rusty life on red lead row after seeing service in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, being scrapped in 1994.

The old gunboat is commemorated not only in the monument in California but also on Bennington Day in Vermont (Aug 16) which celebrates the battle and the two ships named after it, by the USS Bennington veteran’s group and in a storied painting that hangs in the U.S. Capitol’s Cannon Room 311

Peace (the White Squadron in Boston Harbor), oil on canvas, 1893. Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives. Peace was painted by well-known American marine painter Walter Lofthouse Dean.

Peace originally hung in the hearing room for the House Committee on Naval Affairs in the Capitol throughout the WWI period and was moved to the Cannon Room in 1919.

As for Bennington‘s sisters, Concord remained afloat the longest, being decommissioned in 1910, but enduring as a training and barracks ship for the Washington Naval Militia until 1914, then as a quarantine ship for the Public Health Service in Astoria, Oregon, until 1929 when she was sent to the breakers. Two of her 6-inch guns were brought to the War Garden of Woodland Park, Seattle, WA at “Battery Dewey” where they remain on the property of the Woodland Park Zoo today, aged 130+ years.

6″/30 (15.2 cm) gun formerly on USS Concord PG-3, Photograph copyrighted by Dana Payne via Navweaps.

Yorktown, decommissioned and recommissioned no less than four times in her 33 years of service, was involved in the 1891 Baltimore Crisis in Chile, participated in the China Relief Expedition carried out in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, tested Fiske’s revolutionary telescopic gun sight, and served as a convoy escort in World War I before being broken up in Oakland in 1921.

The Navy has not carried a Bennington on its List since 1989.

Specs:

Displacement:
1,710 long tons (1,740 t)
1,910 long tons (1,940 t) (fully loaded)
Length:
244 ft 5 in (74.50 m) (oa)
230 ft. (70 m) (wl)
226 feet (69 m) (lpp)
Beam: 36 ft (11 m)
Draft: 14 ft. (4.3 m)
Propulsion:
2 × horizontally mounted triple-expansion steam engines,[1] 3,400 ihp (2,500 kW)
2 × screw propellers
4 × railroad boilers
Sail plan: three-masted schooner rig with a total sail area of 6,300 sq ft. (590 m2), removed 1902
Speed: 16 knots (30 km/h)
Endurance: 4,262 nautical miles @ 10 knots (6,376 km @ 19 km/h), 12,000 at 8
Complement: 191 officers and enlisted
Armament: (1891)
6 × 6 in/30 (15.2 cm) BL guns
4 × 6 pdr (2.7 kg) guns
4 × 1 pdr (0.45 kg) guns
2 × .45-70 caliber Gatling guns
Armament: (1902-05)
6 × 6 in/30 (15.2 cm) BL guns
4 × 1 pdr (0.45 kg) Rapid Fire guns
2 × .30 caliber M1895 machine guns
Armor:
deck: 0.375 inches (9.5 mm)
conning tower: 2 inches (51 mm)

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Weapons, Wars, Preparation and Security from a recovering gun nut turned bad writer

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